Airlines

JetBlue makes it easier to earn perks and status

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New York-based JetBlue Airways has revamped its True Blue loyalty program, making it easier for both frequent and infrequent flyers to earn incremental perks and attain status with the airline.

You can get into all the nitty gritty details here. But basically, your ‘points’ and loyalty are now measured and accrued in “Tiles.”

And JetBlue customers can earn some desirable perks, even if they don’t fly very often.

In the new program, one tile is awarded for every $100 in qualifying purchases on JetBlue, its associated programs such as JetBlue Vacations, and on flights on its partner airline, American Airlines.

One tile is also earned for every $1,000 spent on any JetBlue credit card.

Every time a TrueBlue member earns 10 (until reaching the airline’s Mosaic status at 50 tiles) they get to pick from a menu of rewards or perks, including early boarding, access to priority screening, a free alcoholic drink each flight, or bonus points. And once selected, a picked perk is valid from the date it’s earned through the end (12/31) of the following year.

JetBlue’s Mosaic tiered status program is also updated.

JetBlue’s tiered status program, called Mosaic, is now also updated with four levels.

Travelers reach Mosaic 1 status with 50 tiles, Mosaic 2 status with 100 tiles, Mosaic 3 status with 150 tiles, and Mosaic 4 status with 250 titles. And, as you may imagine, each tier comes with a better set of perks.

The basic set of perks, granted with Mosaic 1 status (50 tiles) includes:

  • First Two Checked Bags Free.
  • Beer, Wine & Liquor.
  • Even More® Space at Check-In.
  • Same-Day Switches.
  • Early Boarding.
  • Priority Security.
  • Dedicated Check-In.
  • Dedicated Support Line and Priority Chat Assistance.
  • Heathrow Express Upgrade.

The Mosaic 2 tier (100 tiles) grants all of the above perks, plus the ability to book upgraded Even More Space seats during booking.

Mosaic 3 (150 tiles) adds four certificates that let you upgrade from Core to Mint seats.

And the Mosaic 4 tier throws in two more upgrade-to-Mint certificates. Plus 4 one-way BLADE airport helicopter transfers between Manhattan and JFK or Newark (EWR) airports.

And as an added bonus, each time your move up a Mosaic level, there’s another pack of perks to choose from. And that list includes a waiver of the $125 per flight fee to jet with a pet. Which will be very popular.

Are consumers happy with the travel industry?

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The American Customer Satisfaction Index just released its 2023 Travel Study, which ranks airlines, hotels, car rentals, and online travel agencies on customer satisfaction. 

For this report, more than 10,500 customers were interviewed via email over the past year and asked to evaluate their recent experiences with a wide variety of travel companies.

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Alaska Airlines gets the best ranking, rising 8% to an ACSI score of 81 (on a scale of 100).

American and Southwest Airlines each rose 1%, to an ASCI score of 78. United Airlines stayed steady with a 77 score, but scores dipped a bit for Delta Air Lines and Jet Blue.

As you can see from the chart below, airlines, car rental companies, and online travel agencies each made 1% gains in overall customer satisfaction, but satisfaction rose 6% for hotels in general.

JetBlue Flying Next To: Amsterdam.

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JetBlue’s 3rd European Destination? Amsterdam.

JetBlue announced on Tuesday that it will be adding Amsterdam to its list of international flight destinations.

Service will start between New York’s JFK International Airport and Amsterdam Schiphol sometime “late this summer,” according to a JetBlue statement. And flights between Boston Logan and Schiphol are “to follow,” subject to government operating authority.

JetBlue already flies to London’s Heathrow and Gatwick Airports and will begin flying to Paris in June.

As with its other European flights, the daily Amsterdam route will be served by the carrier’s Airbus A321 Long Range (LR) single-aisle aircraft, which has 114 economy seats (“Core”) and 24 new fully lie-flat private suites with sliding doors.

FAA Outage Causes Flight Delays & Disruption

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Late Tuesday evening, an essential piece of the aviation transportation network operated by the Federal Aviation Administration failed.

And because of that the FAA temporarily grounded all flights nationwide on Wednesday morning.

The ground stop was lifted by 8:50 am east coast time. But the fallout included more than 1,300 canceled flights and close to 10,500 delayed flights over the course of the day, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

And, as we know, when that happens, it can take a few days for flight schedules to fully get back in order.

What went wrong?

The FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which provides critical safety and operational information to pilots stopped working. And without that information, it wasn’t safe for any planes to take from any airport.

After the reboot, flights resumed. And by Wednesday evening, the FAA issued a statement with some explanation of what went wrong and a reassurance that the agency wasn’t the victim of a cyber-attack. The agency also promises to ‘further pinpoint’ what went wrong, and “prevent this kind of disruption from happening again.”

“The FAA is continuing a thorough review to determine the root cause of the Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system outage. Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file. At this time, there is no evidence of a cyber attack. The FAA is working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again.”

Now What?

Passengers whose flights were canceled are owed refunds by the airlines, even though this was an FAA-induced incident. Most airlines are waiving change fees and allowing ticketed passengers to change plans and trying to rebook passengers on other flights. If your travel plans were disrupted, be sure to see if the credit card you used to book the flight has some sort of travel delay insurance. Here are links to the Travel Alert page for many airlines.

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Southwest Airlines Saga Continues

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After a week of widespread cancellations and disarray in operations, many Southwest Airlines passengers are still stuck at airports around the country waiting for standby seats. Or in hotels waiting for confirmation of a flight home.

If you’re following social media and watching TV, you’ve also likely seen stories of people renting cars – sometimes with strangers – to get where they need to go.

The airline says it’s doing its best to put things right. And late Wednesday, Southwest Airlines Chief Commercial Officer, Ryan Green, took to social media to offer (more) apologies; a pledge to do “everything we can” to make things up to customers, and something more useful: fresh details about some added tools and resources that might help travelers get refunds, flight reservations, and their baggage.

Airports also are beginning to get answers and action from Southwest Airlines. Take a look at this Twitter thread from Chicago’s Midway Airport, where Southwest Airlines is the largest carrier. In addition to trying to accommodate thousands of stranded passengers, the airport has had to store and secure an incredible amount of baggage.

In the meantime, most other airlines are capping fares on many routes to accommodate those who are rebooking themselves on non-Southwest Airlines flights. But since this is still the busy holiday season, those seats are hard to come by too.

For those of you who may be stuck at an airport or know someone whose holiday plans were ruined by weather and airline meltdowns we know you’ll understand the joy this man experienced – and expressed – once he was reunited with this bag at Midway Airport.